Cowboy Who?

When I was a kid, the only capitol I had been to was in Austin on school field trips. The one that housed our nation’s lawmakers was an icon I’d only seen in photos. I remember a story in the Austin American-Statesman proudly declaring that the Texas State Capitol was taller than the one in Washington, D.C. It was a whole spread comparing both buildings—almost suggesting to readers, tongue-in-cheek, that our Capitol could stand next to America’s if it seceded from the Union. 

On January 6, 2021, I found myself not only inside the U.S. Capitol for the first time, but running away from angry insurrectionists that had just broken through windows and doors to try to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. 

For much of the previous year, I had been covering the groundswell of anger, violence, and conspiracy theories coming from former President Donald Trump’s base for The New York Times and TIME magazine. What once seemed like fringe groups—Proud Boys, Q-Anon, and right-wing militias—became more mainstream the closer it got to Election Day. Days after, I photographed federal, state, and local Republican politicians lining up for photo-ops with dangerous conspiracy theorists from Dallas and armed militia members from Houston.

When January came around, I waited patiently for my editors at TIME to check their emails after the New Year’s festivities to suggest covering the “Stop The Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. I described it as a chance to see what would become of Trump’s most ardent supporters at the end of his administration. I ended up photographing one of the darkest days in American history. 

According to trackers from the Department of Justice, Texas was behind only Florida in contributing rioters to the insurrection at the Capitol. Texans came from all corners of the state to decry what they saw as a rigged election. Around the city, I saw many waving “Texans for Trump” flags alongside Gadsden flags (the ones that say, “Don’t Tread on Me”). Every other car parked in front of the hotels seemed to display our state’s signature black-and-white license plate. 

As the rally began on the lawn of the Ellipse south of the White House, I was struck by how large the crowds were—a sea of red hats, each representing a person who bought into this lie that the election was stolen from their president. Before Trump’s speech was even halfway done, I began to notice streams of people making their way toward the Capitol. I made my way down Constitution Avenue and found myself among crowds of protesters getting angrier by the second. I furiously sent out text messages to my colleagues: “Get to the Capitol NOW.” 

I’m not sure how many times I was shot with rubber bullets or disoriented by flashbangs. Coughing through teargas, I felt the crowd’s center of gravity move beyond the line of police officers toward the windows and doors of the building. I followed a group of men—one wielding a Capitol Police riot shield with a radio earpiece—to the nearest set of windows being smashed open. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly would later describe this moment as “the tip of the spear that pierced the United States Capitol.” As I photographed the angry rioters climbing through the broken glass, I took a deep breath. I followed them through the halls, eventually coming upon one of the most defining scenes of the riot: the group of men I’d pursued facing off with Officer Eugene Goodman in the halls before heroically leading them away from the Senate chamber.At one point, a group of five or six men accused me of not being one of them because I was wearing a “real mask” designed to block COVID-19 particulates. They pinned me against a wall and ripped off the mask inside one of the meeting rooms in the Capitol. I tested positive for COVID-19 a few days after and watched the inauguration from isolation.

I have had a difficult time coming to terms with what had happened. In my years as a photojournalist, I had become familiar with the trauma of political violence, having seen the horrors of war and poverty in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But this was different. I had the privilege of leaving foreign war zones whenever I deemed it too dangerous or stressful. I had the privilege of being an American and partaking in a largely stable democratic government. I had the privilege of not being surrounded by people who wished me harm just because of who I am.

When I returned to Texas, I noticed homes proudly displaying Trump flags outside their doorways along the two roads that lead to my neighborhood. I couldn’t shake the thought of the person with a MAGA hat waiting behind the checkout line at the H.E.B. wished me harm. I couldn’t get over the feeling that at any time, any one of those men who pinned me against the wall and ripped my mask off would turn out to be a neighbor I waved at every morning as I stepped out to get coffee. It took me the rest of 2021 to work through a lot of those feelings. It was my first time in therapy. 

The morning after the world watched the fragile foundations of American democracy shake on live TV, a fellow photographer friend and I went to get coffee at a shop connected to a hotel near the Capitol. Outside was a line of trucks and minivans getting packed by people sporting MAGA hats and shirts. Before I entered the building, I heard someone say, “We gotta get going. It’s a long drive back to Texas!”

The post Inside the U.S. Capitol Insurrection appeared first on The Texas Observer.

One year ago, after a warm spell in early January, several readers asked if the 2020-2021 winter was effectively over for the Houston region. Our response at the time was, “It is decidedly not, but we are having quite mild conditions during what is normally the ‘dead’ of winter.” Of course, a little more than one month later, temperatures plunged as part of the Valentine’s deep freeze that prompted widespread, prolonged power outages, deaths, and significant home damage due to burst pipes.

A similar question might be asked this year, especially after record warmth in December, and a high temperature of 77 degrees on Wednesday. However, our answer remains the same. Houston can have pretty strong cold outbreaks through the middle of March, so “winter” will likely last for about two more months. With that said, the window for a terribly cold freeze, on par with what occurred last year, is closing. We probably have about six or seven weeks during which we really need to worry about seeing a really hard freeze. At present there are no indications of such happening.

Thursday

It will certainly feel like winter later today and tonight as a front moves through the region this morning. Drier air will move into the region from the northwest today, and winds will gust up to about 20 mph from the north-northwest. Although high temperatures will get into the 60s this afternoon beneath sunny skies, they’ll drop off pretty quickly this evening, and bottom out at about 40 degrees overnight in Houston. A few outlying areas may see a light freeze.

Friday

Friday will be mostly sunny, and after a chilly start temperatures will warm to about 60 degrees. As winds shift to come from the east and then southeast, our air mass will modify pretty quickly. As a result we should see clouds returning by Friday evening, and temperatures won’t drop much, if at all, during the overnight hours.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend still looks wet, gray, and warm. The combination of moist air and a low pressure system will yield our first real rain chances since mid-December. The ingredients are there for showers and thunderstorms, and even some heavy rainfall. Right now, models are pegging area-wide accumulations at about 1 inch, but I could certainly see some areas picking up 2 to 3 inches from Saturday morning through Sunday. Rains will likely end by late Sunday morning, so there’s a chance of some sunshine later in the day. Both days look warm, with highs in the mid- to upper-70s. A front will arrive on Sunday afternoon, or evening, to drive the moist air away.

Next week

Accordingly, most of next week should see highs somewhere in the 60s, with overnight lows in the 40s and 50s. Some rain chances return mid-week, and some kind of front should arrive by Friday or Saturday to cool us down for the weekend. Start line temperatures for the Houston marathon still look pretty cold, probably about 40 degrees, give or take.

How To Talk To Boys
and Other Important People
Winters
1983

Girls, here is your chance to get a boy to like you. Are you shy? This book has all the right things to say, so you can get the boyfriend of your dreams!

This book is a bit much for 1983. I am not sure that today’s teens would find anything remotely useful in this book. I doubt this advice worked in 1983 either. This book gives advice on what to say, with some help from Barbara Walters! There is advice on how to be a good listener (aka shut up and let the boy talk). Good grooming is essential. In other words, looks count. Perhaps most disturbing is the advice for when the boy is overly critical. Be more understanding, and, of course, swallow it down and don’t make a scene.

This book is just awful on so many levels. More female empowerment talk needs to happen. Also, most boys are not self-centered creeps. They also aren’t any more “important” than anyone else.

Mary

The post Boys are important people! appeared first on Awful Library Books.

Just over 700 people have been arrested and charged with crimes dealing with the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol last Jan. 6. While thousands traveled from 45 states to Washington D.C., Texas has the dubious distinction of having the second highest number of people arrested for their part in the attempt to overthrow a democratic election.

What happens when you add a bored cop to a cold case? Bad things. Very bad things. That's the moral of the story conveyed by this Seventh Circuit Appeals Court decision [PDF].

Actually, calling it a decision is overstating the conclusions. Apparently, the plaintiff, the defendants, and the lower court all made matters far more confusing than they needed to be, leaving the Appeals Court with a muddied record, unclear assertions from all parties, and open questions as to whether qualified immunity on Fourth Amendment claims had actually been denied.

But the path to the procedural shitshow is a full-blown horror show. An unfortunate death, a full autopsy, no sign of foul play, and yet some officer put out to pasture by his department decided he was the second coming of Columbo and mounted a concerted attempt to ruin a person's life.

Curt Lovelace's wife, Cory, died in her bed one morning while Curt was getting their children ready for school. Almost any death in a person's home will trigger an investigation. This tragedy was no exception.

Because Cory was relatively young when she died, the City of Quincy police, along with several Adams County officials, conducted a thorough investigation of her demise. All the physical evidence pointed toward a natural cause of death. It turned out that Cory was severely alcoholic, bulimic, and had been sick with flu-like symptoms for several days before she died. An autopsy revealed that Cory had been suffering from “marked steatosis of the liver.” Severe steatosis—significant fat throughout the liver—can cause the liver to become inflamed and riddled with scar tissue; at that point the person has cirrhosis of the liver, which can lead to liver failure and death. This evidence could not establish a single, indisputable cause of death, but it was more than enough to suggest an array of plausible natural explanations—chronic alcoholism, when combined with other medical conditions, can itself be fatal. Moreover, Cory’s body bore no signs of violent trauma. She had a small patch of redness under her nose, but it was more consistent with a cold or acne than with violence. And she had a small cut inside her mouth, but because it was already healing when Cory died, it was determined to have predated her death.

Curt's accounting of the events was corroborated by his children.

Investigators also verified Curt’s account of the morning in question by comparing his story to the physical evidence indicating time of death. Curt recounted that Cory was supposed to take their three school-aged children to school that day, as Curt was scheduled to teach a class at a local university. But Cory was still unwell when she woke up. They decided that Curt would cancel his class and take their children to school instead. At one point Cory came downstairs to help get the children ready, but she was feeling very weak, and so Curt helped her back upstairs and into bed. Curt then took the children to school at around 8:15 am. He was back at the house by 8:35 am, but he did not go upstairs until around 9 am, when he discovered that Cory had died. The police interviewed Curt’s three oldest children; all three corroborated this timeline. In particular, all three confirmed that they had seen their mother alive and moving about on the morning in question.

The autopsy, as noted above, saw no evidence of foul play. There was a question raised about the level of rigor mortis observed by the doctor performing the autopsy, but responders to the scene saw nothing out of the ordinary, noting the body was still warm, pliable, and displaying a minimum amount of lividity. An EMS attendant was able to raise Cory's arms to a position above her heart so he could attempt to revive her. Her arms remained in the position the EMS tech had moved them to as rigor mortis set in. The investigation was closed shortly thereafter with law enforcement concluding this was a tragic death, not a homicide.

For most of a decade, the case remained closed. But then a cop with too much time on his hands turned his idle hands into the devil's cold case unit.

There the story should have ended. But seven years later, Detective Gibson set in motion a second act. Formerly one of the Quincy police department’s canine officers, Gibson had been reassigned to elder services after his dog retired. But the new role did not keep him busy, it seems, and so to pass the time he made a habit of reviewing files from old cases. One photo of Cory’s body in the Lovelace file caught Gibson’s attention in November 2013. In it, her arms were raised in what appeared to Gibson to be an unnatural position. He concluded that Curt had suffocated Cory with a pillow the evening before her death was reported, that rigor had set in overnight, and that her arms had stayed put when the pillow was removed sometime the next morning. This was, as we already have noted, wild speculation; Gibson was simply looking at photos that were taken after [the EMS tech had] repositioned Cory’s arms.

Unfortunately, the Quincy PD did not tell the detective to get back to his real work and stop trying to turn closed investigations into ongoing investigations. Detective Gibson managed to rope in a coroner who had spent a few minutes at the home moving Cory's body. Coroner Keller -- years after the fact and prompted by Detective Gibson's enthusiasm for refusing to leave the past unmolested -- made a number of claims supportive of the detective's murder theory.

[Keller] claimed, apparently without notes or other corroboration, to recall that Cory’s body had been in full, not partial, rigor, and that the room had smelled bad, as if her body had already begun to decompose. Those claims, if true, would have supported Gibson’s alternate timeline and contradicted Curt’s account. But no other eyewitness, including several who had spent far more time on the scene than Keller, had reported a similar degree of rigor or mentioned any strong odor. Moreover, Keller made no effort to explain how someone could have moved Cory’s arms if Keller was correct.

Detective Gibson and his coroner co-conspiracist discarded everything that didn't agree with the "Curt killed Cory" theory. They began shopping this narrative around to other medical examiners, hoping to obtain an autopsy report that turned the grieving husband into his wife's murderer.

They started in early January 2014 with Dr. Derrick Pounder. But after hearing Gibson’s theory, Dr. Pounder explained in an email that “rigor is not a reliable method of estimating time of death.” And he advised Gibson that Cory could have spoken to her children that morning, just as Curt claimed, and then been dead with her arms at some stage of rigor 90 minutes later. Gibson did not write up a report memorializing Dr. Pounder’s conclusions.

In late January, Gibson and Keller consulted Dr. Scott Denton. Like the original investigators, Dr. Denton quickly dismissed the redness above the lip and small cut in the mouth as irrelevant. And he, too, homed in on the liver as the most likely cause of death. In February, Gibson met with Dr. Denton in person, but again he made no record of Dr. Denton’s opinions. Nor did Dr. Denton himself submit any report at the time.

They also went back to the person who had performed the original autopsy and tried to get her to change her mind about the cause of death. This effort failed. So did their fourth attempt to secure a medical report in their favor from Dr. Shaku Teas. Teas not only agreed with the other medical experts the pair had approached, but was so troubled by Detective Gibson's actions, she testified on behalf of Curt Lovelace during his trial.

Fifth time was the charm.

Gibson and Keller’s fifth and final attempt to secure a favorable expert opinion took place in April and May, when they presented the case to Dr. Jane Turner. That time, they took a more aggressive approach. Rather than providing Dr. Turner with an accurate and complete picture of the evidence and allowing her to draw her own conclusions, they provided her with selected background “facts.” They told Dr. Turner that Cory was in full rigor before the paramedics arrived (not mentioning that this was at least disputed), told her about the minor injuries to Cory’s lip and mouth but omitted any mention of the benign explanations for those injuries, and falsely suggested that another expert—Dr. Denton—had already all but confirmed the suffocation theory. Most damningly, they told Dr. Turner about the position of Cory’s arms, but not that the arms had been repositioned by the paramedics. Dr. Turner, making it clear that her conclusions rested solely on the information that had been presented to her, prepared a report supporting the suffocation hypothesis.

Using this, Detective Gibson had Curt Lovelace arrested. Lovelace was incarcerated for 21 months because he was unable to make bail. His first trial ended with a mistrial because of a hung jury. Prosecutors went after Lovelace again, but he was more prepared for the second trial. Documents obtained through FOIA requests uncovered a lot of Detective Gibson's attempts to build a murder case out of a previously undisputed natural death. This time around, a jury acquitted Lovelace after two hours of deliberation.

The lawsuit followed. Unfortunately for Curt Lovelace, he might not be able to hold Detective Gibson and his coroner buddy liable for wrecking his life. There are questions about whether or not Fourth Amendment claims were preserved for appeal. There are also questions as to whether the lower court has even made a decision on the qualified immunity the defendants are seeking. A lot of this mess will return to the lower court to get sorted out, which means there's still a chance the detective and the coroner will be able to utilize qualified immunity to have the case tossed.

There's a credible Fourteenth Amendment claim that survives completely intact, though. This appears to have been argued somewhat poorly at the lower level, but the Appeals Court says there are enough facts in dispute that the lower court should not have awarded qualified immunity on that count. That's reversed, which means both claims will hopefully be handed over to a jury to sort out just how badly these government employees fucked over Curt Lovelace and how much it should cost them. But that also means any closure -- much less compensation -- is still probably years away for the man one cop decided might be a murderer.

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Up and down, up and down—so will go our temperatures over the next 10 days as Mother Nature vacillates on whether it should feel like winter or spring outside. This is good thing for those who believe variety is the spice of life. We’re also continuing to track the likelihood of rain this weekend, which would be the region’s first meaningful precipitation in about three weeks.

Wednesday

Temperatures are generally starting out in the 50s this morning, and with light winds a few areas of patchy fog have developed. This should not last, and skies will be mostly sunny later today, allowing for temperatures to warm nicely into the mid-70s. Winds will be modest, out of the south and southwest, at 5 to 10 mph. Temperatures tonight will start out moderate, but a cold front will arrive to cool things down. It looks like the front will reach the Interstate 69/Highway 59 corridor around midnight, and push down to the coast between 3 and 6 am. As a result, Houston will be generally in the 40s (inland) to low 50s (near the coast) when you wake up on Thursday. No rain is likely to accompany the front.

Thursday

Conditions will be breezy on Thursday, as northerly air follows the frontal passage. Look for winds gusting up to about 20 mph to go along with sunny skies, and highs likely topping out in the upper 60s. As winds die down overnight, this will set the stage for cold temperatures. I think the urban core of Houston will remain at about 40 degrees, but outlying areas should fall into the 30s. A light freeze is possible for far inland areas, such as College Station.

Friday

This will be a sunny and cool day, with highs around 60 degrees. However as high pressure moves off and winds shift easterly, this will set the stage for warmer weather ahead. Lows Friday night will probably be about 15 degrees warmer than Thursday night.

Saturday and Sunday

Conditions will be quite warm and muggy this weekend, especially for early January. Look for highs in the mid-70s with partly to mostly cloudy skies and plenty of humidity. The onshore flow will also ramp up moisture levels, and this will lead to increased rain chances beginning as early as Saturday morning. This pattern will hold sway until about Sunday afternoon or evening, when the next front arrives. This front may bring additional rainfall with it, and all told I think most areas will average 1 inch or so this weekend, with less for some areas, and more for locations that see some briefly heavy rainfall. Rains will end with the front’s passage, and lows on Sunday night should drop into the upper 40s.

Next week

We’ll see fairly cold conditions next week, with highs in the 50s and 60s, and lows in the 40s and 50s. Another front arrives by the weekend, perhaps Saturday the 14th, to keep things on the cooler side. If you’re running the Houston marathon, my best guess remains chilly start line temperatures of about 40 degrees.

A judge was mostly dismissive Tuesday of oral arguments by a lawyer for Prince Andrew who wants to win fast rejection of a lawsuit alleging that the prince two decades ago sexually assaulted a 17-year-old American who was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein.

Good morning. The upcoming forecast offers a little bit of something for everyone. There is more cold weather in store, but also some spells of warmer weather. We should also see some measurable rainfall this weekend, which would be the region’s first real precipitation since mid-December.

Tuesday

After a cold start this morning, with a few freezing spots far inland but temperatures mostly in the upper 30s and low 40s, Houston will warm nicely today under the influence of a more southerly flow. Highs will likely top out in the mid-60s, with sunny skies. Easterly winds will turn south, and generally blow at 5 to 10 mph. Skies turn partly cloudy tonight, with lows getting into the low 50s for most areas except the coast, which will be a bit warmer.

Wednesday

This will be a warmer day, with mostly sunny skies and highs in the mid-70s. Expect another mild night with temperatures in the mid-50s.

Thursday

A fairly sharp cold front will drop into the region on Thursday morning, and while the timing remains yet uncertain it should be off the coast by or before noon. There should not be any rain with this front, and skies should remain mostly sunny on Thursday. The influx of northerly air will limit highs to the mid- to upper-60s as winds come out of the north at 10- to 15 mph. Lows on Thursday night will drop to about 40 degrees in Houston, with a light freeze possible for some far inland locations.

Friday

The cold air will be fairly short lived, as winds return from the south on Friday. Expect a pleasant day, with partly sunny skies and highs around 60 degrees. But lows on Friday night will only drop a few degrees, into the low- to mid-50s, as the southerly flow reestablishes itself.

Saturday and Sunday

This warmer pattern will hold sway this weekend, with warm days in the upper 70s, partly to mostly cloudy days, and more humidity. With moist air and low pressure in the vicinity we’ll see healthy rain chances, especially from Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning. Accumulations should range from 0.25 to 1 inch, but there probably will be a wide variance in totals. Rain chances will be best for areas along and east of I-45. A cold front should arrive on Sunday night, some time, to return a drier and colder pattern to the region. Look for several days of highs near 60, and lows in the 40s next week.

Houston Marathon

We’re getting closer to the Houston Marathon, which takes place on Sunday, January 16. Right now it’s really quite early to have any confidence in a forecast a dozen days from now. But given the overall pattern, I think the greatest likelihood is that we see a fairly normal January day, with a temperature in the low 40s at race start, and highs in the 50s or low 60s. The air should be reasonably dry, but it’s way way way too early to have any confidence in such details. I’ll keep an eye on things, and let you know when something more concrete emerges.

1. “Watch Your Step, Mr. Frumble”: Banana Peel as Dilemmatic Cipher for Urban Decay in Scarry’s Busy Busy People
Department: Literature
Advisor: Mama

2. The Anatomy of Danger: Economies of Risk and Reward Implicit Within Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
Department: Literature
Advisor: Mama

3. The Myth of the Toilet: Excretion in Nontraditional Spaces as Art Form
Department: Parent Studies
Advisor: Mama

4. The Subversive Grapheme: The Letter “A” as Unlikely Martyr in Archambault and Martin’s Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Department: Literature
Advisor: Mama

5. Do Not Go Quietly: Nap Evasion as Art Form
Department: Parent Studies
Advisor: Mama

6. “Heaven Above and the Sea Below”: Totemic World-Building in Raffi’s “Baby Beluga”
Department: Sociology
Advisor: Mama

7. Toward a Legitimization of Nontraditional Reference: Goal-Attainment Through Grunts, Screeches, Shrieks, and Wails
Department: Linguistics
Advisor: Mama

8. A House of Cards: A Critical Evaluation of My Parents’ Lackluster Baby-Proofing Skills
Department: Parent Studies
Advisor: Myself

9. What About the Cookies? Erasure of Complex Carbohydrates in Lomp’s Baby, Let’s Eat!
Department: Literature
Advisor: Mama

10. Transcendent Coziness: The Surprise Snuggle as Failsafe Redemption Strategy
Department: Parent Studies
Advisor: Mama

New comic!
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Don't worry: Todd doesn't want to hurt the Pokemon, he just wants to really really really annoy them.

The post Me Ow appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.

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Sorry for the tremendously late update. Mega-snowstorm catastrophically forced me to spend time with my family enjoying nature.

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One of these days I'll make a holiday comic that actually debuts during the relevant holiday.

Today's News:

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There were things I didn't write about (like online dating) because Gloria still read the blog and I felt it would be disrespectful. 

I wish I still couldn't write about them. 

I can, though, and some of them are funny, so here we go.

I don't know how many of you have tried online dating [insert your shudder HERE]. I have, because that's how it's done these days, and one of the things that genuinely amazes me is how many woman have profile pictures that look like screen captures from a hostage video. 

It seriously makes you wonder under what circumstances the pictures were taken. It's like they photoshopped out the sign that said "CALL 911." 

It gives one pause, as they say.

We've noted repeatedly that despite a lot of breathless rhetoric about America's "quest to bridge the digital divide," U.S. government leaders still don't actually know where broadband is or isn't available. Shoddy broadband mapping has generally been a good thing for regional U.S. telecom monopolies, who not only have been allowed to obscure competition gaps (and the high prices and poor service that result), but hoover up an endless gravy train of subsidies and tax breaks for networks that...mysteriously...always wind up half deployed. Our failure to measure deployment success has been painfully, repeatedly exploited.

But there are other ways that incumbents exploit our ongoing failure to map broadband to their advantage. Case in point: roughly 230 U.S. communities have applied for broadband grants being doled out as part of the National Transportation Infrastructure Agency (NTIA)'s $288 million Broadband Infrastructure Program. But when a town or local cooperative/utility/public-private partnership looking to build its own, better broadband network applies for the grant, they're facing baseless challenges by ISPs which claim they already serve these areas.

Grafton, New Hampshire, for example, is looking to build its own fiber network after years of market neglect. It had 3,000 of the 4,000 census blocks they applied for grant money for falsely challenged by regional giants Comcast and Charter Spectrum:

"Of the 4,000 census blocks covered by Grafton’s grant application, Coates said that incumbent ISPs challenged 3,000 of them, even those dominated by cemeteries. In the majority of the challenges, telecom giants overstated available speeds and existing coverage, he noted. “My immediate response was that this was them telling us to go boil water,” Coates said. “Here you go, prove that you can do this in these three thousand census blocks. Have fun figuring it out.”

As we've noted, there's a big lobbying push afoot by entrenched monopolies to ensure as little government stimulus money as possible goes toward building out competition to their regional dominance, no matter what that competition looks like (cooperatives, utilities, local governments, smaller private ISPs, private/public partnerships). To justify their obstruction to local community grants, big ISPs like Comcast and Charter point to FCC broadband maps they know aren't accurate to insist nothing needs to be done. That perpetuates the sub-par service and high prices created by monopolization.

Except the FCC's maps routinely overstate both coverage and speeds, and have for decades. The FCC's methodology also declared (until only recently) that an entire census block is "served" with broadband, if an ISP claims it can serve just one home in that census block. While there have finally been some meaningful improvements to FCC mapping pushed through Congress, it's still going to be several years (and significantly more funding) before most of those fixes can be properly implemented. Some states have developed their own alternative mapping solutions, but for many, engaging in a bureaucratic battle with deep-pocketed monopolies to disprove their coverage claims isn't financially viable.

While the NTIA has made some progress of its own on mapping, it's still being tasked with doling out $42 billion in additional broadband grants as part of the recently passed infrastructure bill -- despite still not having an entirely accurate picture of the problem it's trying to fix. That is, and will continue to be, exploited by entrenched monopolies like AT&T, Comcast, Charter, or Verizon which have not only fought against better mapping for years (knowing more accurate data would only spur calls for reform), but have a vested interest in fighting tooth and nail against any effort to disrupt the uncompetitive status quo.

January 1st is an anticipated day for many reasons, but cultural enthusiasts look forward to it because literature, music, movies, works of art, and other copyrighted materials enter the public domain each New Year. This means that these works may be used freely, without obtaining permission from or compensating a copyright holder. This year we are welcoming literary, film, and art works from 1926, as well as a slew of sound recordings published before 1923. Here are some highlights that enter the public domain today.

From the literary arts, this year welcomes Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, and Dorothy Parker’s first collection of poetry, Enough Rope. 

The Association for Recorded Sound Collections has estimated that 400,000 recordings will enter the public domain today, including Ethel Waters’ Down Home Blues, Bert Williams’  Nobody, Billy Murray’s Give My Regards to Broadway, and Sophie Tucker’s Some of These Days.

Some significant films entering the public domain this year are Buster Keaton’s Battling Buster, The Temptress starring Greta Garbo, and Alan Crosland’s Don Juan, which was the first film to use the Vitaphone sound system. 

The U.S.’ public domain laws can be confusing to navigate because they relate to dates of publication rather than creation date or, as in many other countries, the amount of time passed since the creator’s death. In most of Europe, works are transferred to the public domain 70 years after the creator’s death. Notable artists who died in 1951, and whose work is now in the public domain in Europe, include American Impressionist painter Frank Weston Benson (1862-1951) and German painter and photographer Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, who used the pseudonym Wols (1913-1951). See examples of the artists’ work below, and click the links to explore the pieces in greater detail through Google Arts & Culture.

Click to access on Google Arts & Culture.

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Thousands of people — included hundreds of men — were accused of witchcraft in Scotland, the Guardian reports, "from allegations of cursing the king's ships, to shape-shifting into animals and birds, or dancing with the devil." Many were executed. Now, three centuries after the Witchcraft Act was repealed, campaigners are on course to win pardons and official apologies for the estimated 3,837 people — 84% of whom were women — tried as witches, of which two-thirds were executed and burned... [W]ell-known cases include Lilias Adie, from Torryburn, Fife, who was accused of casting a spell to cause a neighbour's hangover; while Issobell Young, executed at Edinburgh Castle in 1629, was said by a stable boy to have shape-shifted into an owl and accused of having a coven.... The [pro-pardon advocacy site] Witches of Scotland notes that signs associated with witchcraft — broomsticks, cauldrons, black cats and black pointed hats — were also associated with "alewives", the name for women who brewed weak beer to combat poor water quality. The broomstick sign was to let people know beer was on sale, the cauldron to brew it, the cat to keep mice down, and the hat to distinguish them at market. Women were ousted from brewing and replaced by men once it became a profitable industry. Wikipedia has a page with a list of people executed for witchcraft. Citing modern scholars, it places the total number of people executed for witchcraft in Europe and America between 40,000 and 50,000. But the Guardian also notes a recent statement from the head of the pro-pardon advocacy group Witches of Scotland. "Per capita, during the period between the 16th and 18th century, we [Scotland] executed five times as many people as elsewhere in Europe, the vast majority of them women."

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Kalper (Slashdot reader #57,281) shares news from Bleeping Computer: Microsoft Exchange on-premise servers cannot deliver email starting on January 1st, 2022, due to a "Year 2022" bug in the FIP-FS anti-malware scanning engine. Starting with Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft enabled the FIP-FS anti-spam and anti-malware scanning engine by default to protect users from malicious email. According to numerous reports from Microsoft Exchange admins worldwide, a bug in the FIP-FS engine is blocking email delivery with on-premise servers starting at midnight on January 1st, 2022. Security researcher and Exchange admin Joseph Roosen said that this is caused by Microsoft using a signed int32 variable to store the value of a date, which has a maximum value of 2,147,483,647. However, dates in 2022 have a minimum value of 2,201,010,001 or larger, which is greater than the maximum value that can be stored in the signed int32 variable, causing the scanning engine to fail and not release mail for delivery. When this bug is triggered, an 1106 error will appear in the Exchange Server's Event Log stating, "The FIP-FS Scan Process failed initialization. Error: 0x8004005. Error Details: Unspecified Error" or "Error Code: 0x80004005. Error Description: Can't convert "2201010001" to long." Microsoft will need to release an Exchange Server update that uses a larger variable to hold the date to officially fix this bug. However, for on-premise Exchange Servers currently affected, admins have found that you can disable the FIP-FS scanning engine to allow email to start delivering again... Unfortunately, with this unofficial fix, delivered mail will no longer be scanned by Microsoft's scanning engine, leading to more malicious emails and spam getting through to users.

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Today's News:

The British socialite was accused of procuring underage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse. After six days of deliberation, a federal jury found her guilty on five of six counts.

(Image credit: Elizabeth Williams/AP)

A young Mississippi woman is thriving two years after getting treated for sickle cell disease with the revolutionary gene-editing technique known as CRISPR.

(Image credit: Meredith Rizzo/NPR)